Priori Incantatem
by Fiat Incantatum
Summary: After midnight, on the evening of the third task ...


**Disclaimer: **This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling,   
various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and   
Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or   
trademark infringement is intended. 

**Author's Note: **My thanks to Haggridd for the fine editing job and to JKR for everything else.

**Priori Incantatem**

Cho jolted awake, her heart pounding. _A nightmare?_ She looked all around the Ravenclaw girls' dorm. Moonlight streamed in through the tall dormitory windows. Outside, only the faint sound of wind from the distant Forbidden Forest could be heard. Everyone was asleep. If anyone was dreaming, she couldn't tell. As she reached for her robe, her hand swept a folded piece of parchment from her bedside table. With a pang, she recognized the note she had found propped against her pillows when she came to bed. She had read it only once, but it burned in front of her eyes as if graven in letters of flame.

_ Dear Cho,_

_ By the time you read this, both your exams and the final task of the Tri-Wizard_  
_ will be finished. Will you meet me tonight in the Astronomy Tower after_  
_ everyone settles down? I've missed seeing you this week._

_ Cedric_  
_ p.s. Let me know if you can't get away._

Thinking about Cedric hurt, in a distant, shocked sort of way. She moved to the window and stared out over the grounds. _He must have sent that note just before he went down to the stadium. He never thought that it might be he who would not be able to make it. _Her gaze shifted in the direction of the Astronomy Tower.

The common room was silent, the fire on the hearth sunk to just a few dim embers. Outside the secret entrance the corridor was deserted. Even the Grey Lady was absent tonight. She stood silent and listened for a long moment, but heard nothing. What she was about to do made no sense. He wouldn't be waiting for her in the tower—tonight or ever—so there was no reason to go at all, let alone in the middle of the night. She would go anyway.

She settled her robes more firmly over her shoulders and padded off into the darkness.

As she had expected, the chamber where she and Cedric had met so many times was vacant. The whole tower was empty, except for the moonlight. Everything was so still that it felt as if she were the only person left anywhere in the castle. She shut the door behind her, crossed to the window, and looked out once again over the moonlit forest.

_"You came."_ A quiet voice spoke from behind her. There had been no sound of the door opening.

Cho spun away from the window. Across the room was Cedric, leaning against the door. He was barely visible, a darker figure outlined against the gloom.

"C-Cedric?" _No …_ It couldn't be Cedric. He was dead. She'd seen them take his body away. He wasn't—couldn't be—here with her in the Astronomy Tower. It looked so much like him, though, standing there in the darkness. Without having made a conscious decision, she found herself walking across the room. She reached out and touched his shoulder. Her hand sank into it like it was made of fog. She could feel the lightest of pressures, as if she'd encountered a warm current in the still air. Cedric's handsome face was full of regret as he looked down into hers, and at her hand.

_"Brave, dear Cho. You should have been a Gryffindor. I'm not really here, you know. Sorry."_

She drew her hand back. _He doesn't look like a ghost. What is this?_

_"I'm glad you came. I had planned to give you something tonight. I left it in there this afternoon."_ A hand like a drift of smoke indicated the tall cabinet to his left. _"You'll have to take it out, though. I'm not able to open the door."_

On a shelf inside was a square box as deep as her hand was wide.

_"Bring it over near the window and open it."_

She set the box on the windowsill. Inside was a rosebud, fashioned out of glass. She lifted the beautiful object out and balanced it on her open palm. The moonlight glinted off something suspended in the heart of the closed bud.

Cedric touched the glass with his wand. _"Patesco."_ he whispered.

Nothing happened. He sighed in disappointment. _"I need you to do this for me as well, I'm afraid."_

Cho echoed his incantation and watched the furled blossom quiver and slowly bloom. A fine gold chain spilled over her fingers. In the center of the petals there glowed bits of color. Shaking slightly, she freed the gold from the glass and set the rose, now fully open, back into its box. At the end of the chain, clasped between two golden hands and crowned with a pair of wings, hung an iridescent white opal.

"Ced, no. I can't take ... " she began, before he stopped her.

_"Hush. I know. I knew it when I bought this. I wanted you to have it anyway. Please keep it?"_

She bit her lip and studied his gift. The tiny wings beat, sparkling in the radiant air, and streaks of ruby and amethyst color flared inside the stone whenever it moved. Cedric was silent, watching her. Finally, after a long pause, she undid the clasp and set the chain around her throat. His hands brushed against hers as if to help her fasten the clasp again, unfelt but not unappreciated.

_"Opal is called the anchor of hope." _he told her. _"It aids one in seeing possibilities. It made me think of you, even though you have never needed help to see what others could not." _He laid his insubstantial fingers over the stone.

_"Sometimes, an opal can absorb thoughts and memories from those who handle it." _His eyes met hers squarely. _"Remember me, please?"_

She nodded, tears starting. "I will. I could never have forgotten."

Cedric smiled. The details of his smoky body were becoming less distinct. She looked up into his dark face as he stepped closer to her.

_"I have to go." _His fingers brushed her cheek. She thought she could feel them this time.

_"Goodbye, my Cho. I will miss you so much ... " _A moment of warmth touched her forehead, then her lips, but when she opened her eyes again, she was alone in the tower.

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